Azi Paybarah asked this morning what would happen to Weiner Bonfire now that Anthony Weiner has decided to drop out of the race for NYC Mayor. I can assure you that I won’t be going anywhere. And besides, what would be better to read than stories about a bunch of little Weiner’s running around the house? And now without further adieu:

It seemed like the calm before the storm, and as the clock ticked towards 4pm, Melinda became noticeably anxious. Her doctor’s appointment the day before had gotten her out of the office, but today she wasn’t going to be as lucky. Some of us feigned concern, but we were actually just trying to hide our relief that it wasn’t our week.

The phone rang— and it was that painful squeal from the communications line. Melinda looked around the cramped office, glancing past cubicles and hoping to find a friendly face. Everyone was pretending to be working, and in reality, just a few minutes ago, we had been, but for the next few minutes we were all intent on listening with our eyes averted.

“Hello, communications office.”

Melinda answered with an over-emphasized confidence.

“Yes Hello— This is Dick Bunnings from the New York Examiner. Who is this?”

Dick’s voice rang out like a staccato machine gun, and the background noise from the newsroom kept up the loud roar even after he stopped talking.

“This is Melinda Finkel, how may I help you today Mr. Bunnings?”

“You can help me by explaining why you work for a Congressman who parked illegally at least two times in college and then didn’t pay the fines! Does Congressman Weiner believe that college students shouldn’t pay their parking fines? Does he realize that tuition rate increases could have been prevented in 1984 if he hadn’t been breaking the law without ramifications?”

Dick was almost breathless and his voice had gotten louder as he spouted the accusations. He probably would have continued if Melinda hadn’t interjected.

“Mr. Bunnings… sir… off the record…” a low grunt from the other end of the phone allowed her to continue, “I can assure you that Congressman Weiner believes strongly in supporting our education system and he would never knowingly violate the law. If you give me your contact information, I can get back to you with more information.”

Melinda knew to keep it short. Always keep it short, and always off the record.

“Dick Bunnings, that’s D as in, don’t fuck with the New York Examiner– I as in, I will make your life hell if you don’t call me back – C as in—fuck it, it’s Dick Bunnings, 212-555-4278. My deadline is in one hour. You have thirty minutes before I tell the whole world that Congressman Weiner is the reason that 12 students were unable to attend college in 1985 because of tuition increases.”

Melinda was now sweating and it was noticeably hotter in the cramped dank cubicle. It wasn’t because of what Dick had been saying, but what came next. What came next was always much worse than anything the reporter could say.

“Thank you sir, someone will call you back soon. Take Care.”

The phone line went dead on Dick’s end, and it sounded like a jail cell slamming. Melinda paused for a moment with the phone up to her ear, caught momentarily in the fear, but knowing full well that ‘inaction is not an option!’

As Melinda made her way to the door, everyone’s glances were averted, but the symphony of gchat’s made it clear what everyone was thinking and talking about. The knock was the three clear blows that were always fully expected from the other side.

“What?!”

The noise that carried through the thick door didn’t stop there. The burnt coffee inside the coffee pot on the other side of the room trembled with fear. A delayed response would be unacceptable, and it had been known to cause face to face confrontations.

“Dick Bunnings claims you didn’t pay two parking tickets in college. He said because you didn’t pay the fines, the school faced a budget shortfall and it forced them to raise tuitions. They have 12 students ready to give hardship testimony.”

Melinda immediately knew she shouldn’t have added ‘hardship.’ Never claim that he was the cause of a problem. Never.

“Fuck Dick!”

Melinda’s quick breath from fear was further agitated by the chirp of another gchat. What followed was a deep guttural yell that seemed like the combination of anger, too much coffee, and an absence of the standard morning workout.

“NUMBER!?!?!”

Melinda responded before his voice stopped echoing.

“718-555-4278”

The sound of silence followed momentarily. No further response came from behind those big doors, and Melinda slowly walked back to her cubicle. It was 4:06 pm, and for the next 24 minutes, yelling and expletives emanated through the walls. As soon as the sounds ceased, even the coffee stopped shaking. We all knew what came next. Even the sounds of gchats were muted. The doors swung open and a tall red-faced man stepped into the dank room.

To commemorate not posting since the 20th, I made a double post– this video was made from tv clips that occurred about a month before the 2005 election. It is followed by this weeks’ installment of Bonfire of Anthony Weiner’s Vanities– Freddy the Fuck-up.

Freddy Ferrer: Loser

Freddy the Fuck-Up
Anthony was leaning back in an ox-blood-colored high-back leather chair, punching the buttons on his telephone with a loud clicking sound. The door to his office slowly creaked open—almost fearfully— and a young woman, dressed in a sleek painted-on beige outfit, stepped into clear view holding a Grande Starbucks cup and a small bag containing a pitiful excuse for the morning meal.

Anthony half turned his head before turning back and bellowing, “Cold!”

Melanie knew that what he meant, and didn’t dare telling Anthony about the anti-war protestors outside the capital that had forced her to take the long route. She was out the door and quietly closing it before Anthony had a chance to see the blueberry muffin that had regretfully replaced his preferred meal.
The ringing on the other end of the phone stopped suddenly, “Let’s hear it,” the voice barked.

“Good morning Rahm how are you?” Anthony said mockingly.

“Fuckin fantastic,” Rahm said with his usual over-eagerness, “but I’m sure you’re about to start seeing the townspeople with pitchforks, if you keep this shit up.”

“It’s that shit-can grin that fucking gets me,“ Anthony said angrily, “and I’m having a hard time adjusting to the stupid shit coming out of it.”

Rahm replied with quick condolences, “Look I know Freddy is a fuck up! It’s clear as fucking day—but you can’t fuck this up. At least you’ve got a day job, Freddy is going to transition from passing out lit on the corner, to offering handjobs on the subway.”

An untypical silence came from both ends of the phone, and Anthony pulled the lid off his coffee and sighed as a whiff of steam barely escaped his hands.

“If we had one more week—he’d be tickling my balls with that stupid fucking moustache hoping to get appointed somewhere. It’s like his job was to piss off everyone in as short of time as possible—and he fucking sucks at life too!” Anthony’s tangent seemed to continue almost breathlessly. “If he was starving to death in the Sahara desert, and a sandwich vendor walked by carrying a cooler full of sandwiches, he still couldn’t convincingly deliver the line, ‘I’d like to buy a sandwich.’”

Rahm seemed to have been either distracted, or he was attempting to bring Anthony back to Earth, “Ya it absolutely pained me to have been siding with Sharpton, but Freddy shot himself in the fucking foot.”

“Sharpton thinks he’s King Shit of Fuck Mountain,” Anthony said with half a mouthful of muffin.

“Sure—but in that fucking cut-throat primary, you better believe that King Shit can make or break you.” Rahm’s voice seemed to be painfully dancing around the obvious. “You need to quit bleeding on the carpet and get back to work— like fucking yesterday.”

Both men were silent for several seconds, but Anthony’s chair creaked as if looking to interrupt.

“Sorry to cut this short— Rahm you know it’s always a treat—but there are some interns here who think they run this fucking place.”

Anthony leaned back in his chair, surprised at his sudden indifference.

Rahm’s seemed to pause momentarily before signing off, “Ya tell that fucking idiot I said good luck.”

“You know I will—“

Anthony set the phone down and leaned back in his chair. As he sipped the luke warm coffee, the bitter taste began to sharpen his senses. Suddenly, and as if a fire had been lit under the chair, Anthony yelled through the wall to everyone sitting quietly in the large cubicle-filled common room.

Some people have tried to compare Dewey Beach to Panama City Beach, but those people probably got there long after Cape Henlopen Park was cleaned up by the forest service. In 1987, when the police were few and far between, and buck-wild all night summer parties were standard fare, grass grew like, well grass, and getting stoned was always kosher— especially for the interns from Congress who lived by the motto, “If we aren’t getting paid, we might as well get laid!”

The crash house we were all bunked up at was located off Ocean Dr.—right on the beach— two stories of crazy animal house debauchery. Every night there would be another story that you just wouldn’t believe, but every morning was another day closer to going back to the real world.

Jon Leibowitz had come down to spend the summer soaking in the sun, showing off the lightning bolts he’d shaved into the side of his head, and to most everyone there, it seemed that his one goal in life was to convince everyone he talked to that the New World Order was scheming to destroy our government from the inside out.

“Wake the fuck up Tony!”

Jon was standing over a small single bed– in it– a young Tony Weiner, six feet tall and no more than 150 pounds was the back spoon—the front spoon was a local he’d been seeing for a couple of weeks named Moonstar. It would be unfair to say she was a burnt out hippie – to be burnt out, at one point you need to be on fire— and she was anything but. It was a strange juxtaposition—two people that would probably never have gotten along in any other circumstances—but due to, what some might call “summer camp glasses”— they continued to spend most nights together. Some people might have chalked up their relationship to a perpetual state of intoxication— but those of us that knew Tony best— knew he was a lion by day and a big pussycat by night. Moonstar also rolled great joints.

Tony half turned over, simultaneously squinting and glaring. “It is way too fucking early—you have ten seconds to go back downstairs before I throw you off the fucking balcony.”

“Bag your face fool! Today is going to be epic and I don’t need your attitude fucking up this tasty buzz!”

Jon paused before continuing, clearly aware, but essentially ignoring the fact that he had just been threatened with a violent death by a man laying half naked right in front of him.

“I’ve got the schematics all laid out—I called the hardware store—they got what we need—this is gonna happen!”

Tony began to resign himself to waking up, but Jon might as well have been talking about the Bilderberg Conference again—a topic which Jon considered, “the most fucking important thing you don’t know about! And the most important thing that THEY don’t WANT you to know about!”

“Okay, break it down like a fraction—talk slower—and explain to me what the fuck you are talking about.”
Tony was acting annoyed, but he was always a little more aggressive than any situation warranted. Jon always liked to joke that Tony was a type-A-DB.

“We’re going to make the largest bong Dewey Beach has ever seen—two stories—from the balcony down to the beach. I’ve already measured everything out, you knows I got the buds, and all we need to do is go buy this shit and put it together.”

Jon was nearly breathless and Tony looked like the wind had been knocked out of him. He purposefully paused before responding.

“You need to chill the fuck out and take five steps back before things get hectic—First, we don’t need to draw that much attention to our smoking and second, unless you are going to do all of this shit yourself, I’m out. I’m not buying into another one of your hair brained schemes. Your brilliant idea to make a wave powered bong ruined half our sack and I ended up drinking a shit load of salt water.”

“Wait that could have worked—we just didn’t have the –“
“Shut the fuck up— we’re done here.”

Tony rolled back over and was clearly either going back to sleep, or just attempting to end the conversation before it went any further. Moonstar had begun to wake up; even though it seemed that even the most heated conversations wouldn’t get a rise out of her.
It was like that most days, Tony would sleep in, more often than not woken up by a half-cocked Jon Leibowitz, and then work in a bit of a morning glory before he would stumble down to begin another long day of drinking and smoking in the sun. Everyday seemed like a holiday, and no one took a minute of it for granted. But when it came time to go back to Washington, the days of smoking grass with buxom local hippies and characters filled with conspiracy theories was over. Everyone promised to come back the next year, and some people kept their promise—but for most everyone—1987 was a year that wasn’t repeated. Those that came back said that everyone who was absent wasn’t living in the moment. But when a year passes, and you have struggled daily with the mantra of carpe diem in the fast paced world of Washington politics— the dream of a guilt free summer can make you feel too guilty— and it’s never easy to go back to something that helped you move forward. And besides, most of us were getting paid by the time the next summer came around. The chorus of “fuck sleeping in a single bed” was seemingly unanimous. It was also the end of something that many of us just tried not to talk about– It was the end of our innocence—and we were officially part of the D.C. in-crowd.

Alina’s eyes were black like Caspian oil and she arched her back above the man she had met just hours before.“I vant to fuck your wonky brains out.”

Anthony’s hand grasped the small of her back, just inches above a faded pink heart tattoo that said “Propriété de Henri.”It wasn’t the first time he’d been called a wonk, but it always felt just as good.

“Well, I want to make love to you.”

Anthony knew he didn’t have time to do things proper, but he liked to come into things with the best intentions.And this wasn’t just your average Brooklyn bar hopper—you don’t get a second chance with someone who might only be in town for a week at a time.Jet setters are just that.

“Tony, vhat are you thinking about? Your eyes are not as sparkling, and your distance isn’t touching me softly.”

Alina had seen him across the large open restaurant—the large metal grates criss-crossing the floor didn’t attempt to hide its former purpose. Blood had probably drained off thousands of carcasses in the room that now reflected a purple glow off the Philippe Starck Louis Ghost chairs and the clinking glasses filled with brightly colored drinks and peels of yellow lemon. There Tony stood, surrounded by a small crowd listening intently and ignoring the glances shooting towards them like paparazzi, with a wide smile and sharp elbows—his presence would have drawn her even if she hadn’t come for him.

“I’m just tired,” Tony paused hesitantly. “I had a good time tonight… I don’t normally do this sort of thing.”

A devilish grin was hidden as Tony’s eyes strayed towards Alina’s long thin legs—his thoughts flashed to an out-of-reach Juliet, Sarah.Somewhere in the distance was the familiar siren of the Queens volunteer ambulance, and the high pitched squeal brought his thoughts back to work.Tonight had been profitable, but more importantly, it had been productive.

Alina saw her opening, “I hope we can do this again soon. If only…”

The drinks at the club had been chilled—cold and sweet—and they went down a little too easily. Salted cashews dusted with Haitian spices kept everyone thirsty, and it wasn’t long before tongues were loose and business turned to pleasure.Most of the guests had come with good intentions, some came to discuss politics.

Congressman Anthony Weiner is one of the most interesting members of Congress, and I'm fascinated with his life-- whether that be the fact that his old roommate was Jon Stewart, or the stories in the news that paint him as somewhat of a playboy. Please try not to think of this as overly political-- but merely try and enjoy it as a purely fictional account of Weiner's life. Also, I consider this less of a Tom Wolfe rip off-- and more of a rip off of the movie version of The Bonfire of the Vanities-- so basically, I'm okay if you consider it crap.